Paper towel



Sept. 20,` 1938. s, F ATKINS I 2,130,375

PAPER TOWEL Filed April 8, 1936 Patented Sept. 20, 1938 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE The Northwest Paper Company, Cloquet, Minn.,

a corporation o! Minnesota. Application April s, 193s, serial No. '13,384

1 Claim.

The present invention relates to absorbent paper sheets, such as paper towels.

Paper towels as commonly used, are felted sheets of fibers which have high absorbency. 5 Many are creped or otherwise deformed from a flat sheet. Like all felted sheets of cellulose or wood bers, the fiber ends are smoothed down or held inside of, or close to, the surface of the sheet. This is aninherent result of the felting and drying operations.

It is an object of the present invention to treat such felted sheets in a "tearing manner so as to expose many fibers and fiber ends individually, thereby to increase the absorbency of the sheet.

It is an object of the invention to form tears in the sheet, so that the tear provides a perforation dened by feathery edges of fibers and fiber ends.

It is also an object to arrange the tears in 20 respect to the direction of rolling, so as not to weaken the paper or subject it to tearing not desired.

In the accompanying drawing there are shown several embodiments of the invention in which:

Fig. 1 represents a, roll of toweling with one form of tear therein providing a tongue pointing into the roll as the web unrolls.

Fig. 2 is a detailed view of a piece of paper with such a tongue as shown in Fig. l.

Fig. 3 is another form of tear in a roll of creped paper.

Fig. 4 is a form with a torn sheet.

The invention is not to be considered as limited to or by the forms specifically shown as will appear hereinafter.

Toweling is provided in both folded forms and in rolls, and these are often mounted in dispensing devices. Where the sheets have a continuous surface there is no necessity for considering the direction of the web with respect to discharge from a device, but where the surface is broken as in this invention, such consideration may be necessary.

For example, a roll of paper I Il unrolls to presentweb II movable in the direction of arrow I2 where the roll I is fixed on its axis. 'Ihe web II is provided with a plurality of loose tongues I3 with a V-shaped edge, the V pointing to the roll. Thus, the moving web tends to prevent the tongues being caught when kout of the plane of the web, and being torn beyond the normal form. These tongues may be otherwise shaped and it is preferred to arrange them in two similar sets,

hole or void in the each being punched down from different faces of the sheet.

The tongues I3 are. where a sheet better illustrated in Fig. 2, I5 of felted fibers has a tongue I6 generally V-shaped and foldable into and out of the sheet on the dotted line I 1. a feathery edge I 8, and the hole the tongue material is taken has a 20. Such a hole or tongue is not Tongue I6 has I9 from which feathery edge cut, but it is formed by a tearing-like operation, resulting in 10 tear by over-straining the paper locally where the tear is desired. This causes the fibers to pull out of their felted relation, and it leaves feathery edges. One suitable way is to press as shown at 2|, with a V-shaped end 22,

a blade such in the direction of arrow 23 against web I5, until it In Fig. 3 another form of tear is shown and any sheet of paper the regreatly A bond paper will give stand- Such give less bonding of ber to out of 25 This is a substantially straight-line tear 24 in rolled sheet 25, which has crepings 26 at right to the tears. The tears can be arranged order, but preferably they are parallel as and if the web is rolled, they are parallel direction of rolling. Thus the new tears weaken the web for unrolling.

The invention may also be carried out moving a small piece of the web by a angles in any shown, to the do not by retearing action so as to leave a hole with feathered periphery. For example in Fig.

4, sheet 2'I has hole 28 with feathery edge 29, caused by removal of a piece of web 3. also has a feathery edge 3|, sorbent area is lost to the user web 30 is completely severed It will be noted that piece 30 and that this abwhen the piece of from the web 2'I.

Hence the preferred form of the invention has a tear and a hole without loss of web material. The tearing frays a large number of the fibers which otherwise would b e hidden inside the sheet,

thus increasing the surface absorbency, the quick action of the sheet, and the efficiency of th While it is recognized that toweling e sheet. is perforated to facilitate its tearing into individual towels, it is to be understood invention is applied in addition to and tinction from such line of perforations. be noted that in Fig. 3, for example, the w be perforated for tearing without the that the present in dis- It is to eb may line of perforation being lead at right angles into one or more of the feathered cuts. This results from the particular arrangement of the cuts so as to leave spaced linear areas free from cuts. The perforations for tearing provide a. towel which may have a feathery edge, but the usable area of the towel is not altered at al1 by such perforations for tearing. The present invention species that the tears for increasing absorbency are distributed over the area of the sheet as distinguished from a line otoperiorations for tearing.

It is to be understood that the tears may be made in plain paper, creped pape or paper otherwise deformed.

I claim:

Paper toweling comprising a sheet of felted bers provided with holes therein and correspending tongues integral with the sheet and torn from the area of the holes, the tongues and holes having the edges feathered with bers, all the tongues extending in one general direction along the sheet, whereby the sheet may be readily dls- 10 pensed without danger of tearing.

SAMUEL F. ATKINB. 

